This was so funny! I didn’t stop laughing! Some parts were obviously planned and were supposed to be funny but quite a few things went wrong when I went and even the actors couldn’t not laugh which added to the hilarity. It’s a simple story and the comedy is definitely the selling point here. Seeing their close interactions is great too!

Rating: 9/10 << might be in the race to be my favourite D-Stage! But I’ll have to rewatch it to decide that finally.

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First I will talk about the story:

Basically Miyazaki Shuuto* has always been told to aim for the Olympics but he doesn’t see the point; he’s on a losing streak, he doesn’t want to go to the Olympics, he doesn’t even think he likes it anymore. Then thanks to a trip to Tokyo with his Judo buddies, he has his first love, finds a rival and discovers what he really wanted to do and what Judo means to him.

*They’re using their own names for the characters.

Simple enough story right? Which is great because it left a LOT of room for the BIG theme of the play: the comedy. This was absolutely hilarious! A lot of it was planned comedy but unfortunately the day I went, a LOT of things went wrong or happened without the other actors knowing it was going to happen so not only were the audience laughing hard but also the actors were laughing insanely hard too that they had to stop the play a little so both actor and audience could calm down xD Which means it as a lot of great fun!

To be honest, when I first got my ticket and it was Row Z and the site said row Z is actually row 3 and a bench seat I kind of panicked because I imagined the type of benches we have to sit on in primary school in England and they are not comfortable! SO I was super worried I’d have to put up with one of those types of benches for a 2 hour plus show BUT when I got there they weren’t really benches; just normal chairs without the back and with a cushion! And my bad didn’t hurt at all! I was comfortable the entire time! Also I was super lucky that the person in front and the person next to me didn’t show up SO I was technically on my own and second row! Which made it SUPER easy for the actors to spot us; seriously the first row could TOUCH the stage without even stretching their arm out! And Mitsuya definitely spotted me and I think Ikeoka looked over a few times -- but being me I kept looking away from IkeP if he so much as seemed to see me, cos I’m a shy girl with my bias’ xD

SPOILERS

Anyway! Now to the parts of the play I wanna focus and talk about! First let’s talk about the PLANNED comedy okay?

This stage was a godsend in terms of reconfirming and reaffirming my love for IkeP. He did amazing in Yuhiden and Litche Hikari Club at the end of 2015 and that’s where I fell for him so I went into 2016 super hopeful for him but he only ended up doing like ONE play and ONE dorama and that was April and September, so I was super worried for his career and worried I wouldn’t be able to see more of him BUT we’re only in February and already he’s got a dorama airing, he’s doing a stage now and he’s definitely got Dansui stage in May! So he’s already doing more this year which makes me a super happy bunny and seeing him (finally!, again!) in this on Monday really helped me remember ‘ah yes I love this idiot’ xD he really is hilarious and cute!!

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That’s all I got to say really. I am very much looking forward to the DVD! It’s a thoroughly enjoyable play! Seriously, a lot of fun and I didn’t stop laughing for over 2 hours!

Hey guys! I did purely a stage actor one back in May which you can check out here.

My Watching/Keeping-an-Eye-on actors have somewhat drastically changed, particularly over last summer, so I want to keep you all updated. Also this gives me a chance to talk about some actors that impressed me last year and that I hope continue to grow through out this year. As well as solidifying to you guys who my bias' are xD

And finally here are my 'Keeping an Eye on Actors' that hopefully will stay with me until atleast March/April-ish. I do warn you, it's a drastic change xD also I warn you; I'm a sucker for actors who take the time to like and/or reply to my tweets, and/or take time to talk to me during events/after plays and that's influenced my list below A LOT.

And I think that's my list. As you can see it's super changed and it's definitely smaller compared to last time but hopefully this allows me to start saving money also as that's a BIG goal for this year ^_^

You can see the list of those I intended to read here. I completely stuck to my list this time and didn't watch anymore nor anything else! (<< as in 2016 Autumn releases) Some were absolutely amazing, but there were a few disappointments.

This bored the crap out of me. I watched it because my friend loves Yamada and she wanted to watch it together with me. But I ended up missing weeks and had to marathon like episodes 3 to 8 in one go so I never actually live tweeted her about it at all. Luckily she enjoyed it because of Yamada but unfortunately he was not enough to keep my interest. This plot is so stupid. It couldn't decide if it wanted to be a business focused dorama or a romance focused dorama; it kept flipflopping between the two. And while the romance started off good and I was still onboard about episode 7; the end result was so stupid. Can I spoil you? Okay here:

This is still on going but I'm about 36 episodes in and this is enjoyable. It's simple, it's cute, it's definitely a step up from the previous season, the plot development is decent too but it's nothing amazing but it's definitely good to watch. The Halloween episode was great preciated xD This series might finish before the winter season is over (it normally runs like Feb to Jan every year).

5. Kamen Rider Ex-Aid

This is also still on-going and this is a lot of fun! I really like the plot and I like the characters and the budget for this show is huge compared to the previous series because of the amount of CGI they use every episode! Also; all the boys are so cute!!! I'm definitely (and surprisingly) loving Snipe and Laser (<< oh jesus they're all younger than me including these two!!) so much! They're great and I swear to go if they kill them off; I'm rioting! xD I say this because in (about) episode 11 we already got out first character loss so I'm glad this Kamen Rider also isn't being kind as usual and isn't being child proof which is always appreciated. I have to say the weakest out of them all is Emu! Once again we have a Kamen Rider where the main character is the weakest part of the series! I really like him BUT I feel the personality switch he's supposed to have when he starts playing games just isn't prominant enough and it's not obvious enough. Finally, surprisingly Hiiro is growing on me and it all started because he likes cakes and sweets <3 his backstory really helped me understand him also. So yes, enjoying it and having a good time with the characters!

I'm done with the doramas! What did you watch and enjoy? And now for the anime:

As you all know I got the 10th Anniversary DVD Box Set of D-Stage for Christmas last year and now I've FINALLY gotten around to reviewing them all even though I watched them all almost a year ago and I feel like I should rewatch them at the beginning of January... So I think I'll do all my reviews here anyway BUT if I wanna add something or talk about a stage in more detail once I've rewatched them during the new year, I'll do another post then, sound good? Okay lets get on with these FOURTEEN stages! *dead already*

**Btw all their stages info can be found here. Cannot believe we're on Stage 20 next February!

**(For some reason I thought either the website or the booklet had stated how many people went to watch each stage, but I can't find that info in either of them! I know I didn't imagine it... where the hell did I see that info... it's gunna drive me mad not knowing...)

I don't know why they called it 4 and 10, maybe they tried of 10 or more different combinations of the boys before they decided the two best groups? Also I don't know why they did it twice BUT I'm glad they did because even though the story is the exact same, each of the boys makes the character their own! This is basically a historical stage (as you can tell from the pictures) and I can't quite remember when it's set but it's like 1600s and basically the karasu (= crows) are against the main emperor army and it's about how they formed and they go against the army towards the end.

First let me talk about Karasu 4 which I preferred the most out of the two (but this could be simply down to seeing that version first or because I'm more Tomo biased than Seto biased xD):

And my notes stop there. Did that make any sense?! I'm slowly starting to see a pattern with my notes. Because I was super new to stage at the time, I was more fixated on how everything looked but now that I've been watching and paying attention to stages for over a year now, I now focus more on the story and pace and other aesthetics like the staging etc. which at the time of writing these notes I didn't know much about hence why it's so 'this moment was good!' and appearance based.

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Now for Karasu 10! The rating for this one is a little lower because, as stated, I prefer the Vol.4 one.

It's safe to assume that Last Game was super popular the first time and that's why they wanted to redo it and retry it. Naturally the mains have changed over the 2 years since it was last performed and Seto is now the main lead. I won't need to go into too much detail this time, only mention the differences.

Now this one I actually watched for the first time YEARS ago. Just after Merchant of Venice came out on DVD (late-2012), this was the second ever D-Stage I eer watched and even though at the time my Japanese was piss-poor, I still ended up crying at the end... watching it this time and actually understanding it - and I NEVER have forgotten how I felt the first time I ever watched this - I was a wreck. I never want to watch this again but oh my this is one hell of a good stage!

This was the first D-Stage I ever saw! I first watched it.... over 4 years ago and loved it straight away! Rewatching it this time gave me so many feels and nostalgia and it made me remember how much I love Kaji and how great Usui is as an actor and I love how they did the modern/historical theme mix! This is the first Shakespeare play D-Stage ever did and their Shakespeare series is probably one of their strongest production series that they've ever done.

There was actually four teams; Red, White, Blue and (I think) Green, so they shuffled the 8 main actors about a bit. I was lucky enough, and crazy enough, to go and see this the first time I went to Japan. I kinda bought the ticket on a whim, bought my flight and went to Japan and watched this and omg it's still one of the best moments of my life and I remember Kaji Masaki came the day I went and he was like 2 rows behind me! I wonder if I wrote a review for that time... *searches* Holy crap I did write a review for that time! =O I'm so surprised at how well I understood that play all those years ago! I saw the White team which was Seto, Tomo, Usui and Taito! Now onto the Red and Blue versions:

This was the first D-Stage the D2Boys did officially as D2Boys and at the time it got a LOT of hate but also a LOT of support. It still goes on now but there is/were this HUGE divide between D-Boys fans and D2Boys fans and D-Boys fans wouldn't recognise the fans or the D2Boys as D-Boys and stuff. It was a crazy time and it still sometimes happens. ESPECIALLY because yesterday (yesterday now being December 13th) I learnt that when Tomo did the after talk for this stage, apparently (I'm hearing two types of stories) he only commented on how visually good it looked and/or he only had criticisms for the boys. Looking and searching for past tweets, it's clear he did mention that the set looked really good but also he talks about Claus and how he'd like to do that role and IkeP mentioned that he thinks he'd suit Petro's role and stuff. SO I'm not really sure what went down but according to me friend 'because of his comments, it became a blood bath' so I can only really rely on my friend's recaption. Unless anyone can point me to fan blogs and fan reviews from that time. It doesn't change my opinion of Tomo if he was a dick and did just sit there criticsing the boys because I'm in it for the long run with Tomo; the good and the bad so I'm not going to just abandon him because of some dick move he possibly pulled - that's just not how a relationship works right? xD

Anyway I've reviewed these two before so check these out TRUTH and Reverse << holy crap it's been like exactly a month since I first watched this!! WAAAH?!?! xD

I love Trump, we all know this xD and I have actually watched the 2015 re-produced (not D-Boys) version and I much prefer the D-Stage version.

This is the first musical D-Stage did! This was originally a Korean dorama and they took the script, translated it and made it into a stage so that's why the title is so strange and I'm pretty sure they keep all the korean names too. This is about ikemen in a vegetable shop pretty much. I honestly do no remember much else xD

This is their second Shakespeare play and just like the first one it was hilarious, enjoyable, did not disappoint and I could easily watch it over and over. It's very similar to the first one too, but that could just be Shakespeare uses the same elements over and over again such as 'male actors crossdressing as females who then pretend to be males' as well as 'love at first sight' and hyperbole.

Also the evening ended with fangirling for about 3 hours with Tilmon and it was amazing!!! We spoke about SO many things that we're both passionate about! AND the girl at the restaurant we were at was like 'You went to Yuhiden? How was it?' xD IT WAS AMAZING!!! Both the stage and hanging out with Tilmon <3

And yes I have ALREADY pre-ordered this bitch <3 Cos FUCK! So amazing!!! Just like every other fucking D-STAGE <3